We ended up having ten days in Tepotzotlan between CDMX visits. Tepo might not be the most exciting place on Earth, but that’s fine by us. It’s a perfect place to catch up on a few things and gear up for seven more days in the nation’s capital.
Laundry Day.
Here in Tepo, getting laundry done isn’t exactly easy. Some RV parks have onsite DIY facilities. This place does not.
It took us a while to find a functional lavandaria in town (surprisingly difficult for a town this size), but we eventually located one a half kilometer away. An awkward distance for a full load of laundry—a bit far for toting a heavy bag, and a too close to justify a taxi. Fortunately, the boys are getting big enough to lend a hand.
If you stay at Pepe’s and need to do laundry, the place is here. They don’t answer their phones and the hours are whatever they feel like, but it’s currently your best bet in the neighborhood.
Continuing on Noe’s quasi-obsession with the summer olympics…
Clean-out day! We try and to this once a month or so. Noe is a treasure collector.
Bro sat this round out.
Riley is a bit of a minimalist neat-freak so it rarely takes him long to get his bunk in order.
Some hearty and very tasty chilaquiles.
Tepo’s Municipal Palace. Most weekdays, the plaza here is pretty quiet. But it gets packed on evenings and weekends with locals doing a little bit of everything.
Our first attempt at visiting the Old College of San Francisco Javier ended abruptly with an earthquake drill. The boys wanted to return to see the rest, so Sunday seemed like the natural choice.
Most national museums in Mexico are free to the public on Sundays. They can get pretty packed, but we were willing to take the chance. Foreign tourists usually still have to pay on Sundays, but many, like this one, will honor our temporary residence cards.
Sundays are a fun time to be in and around the main plaza in Tepozotlan. Everyone’s here to eat, dance, and have a good time, even at the height of the rainy season.
Our go-to fruit and veggie shop down the street.
We thought the boys might like a change of scenery for school time and headed to one of the few coffee shops in town.
At first, we thought they were closed, but they just hadn’t gotten around to opening everything up and turning on the lights. We got settled and got the boys set up with their work.
Not five minutes later, the woman working the frontend turned on the TV and put Lion King on, presumably for kids. Lori told the woman in Spanish, that’s ok, we’re doing a bit of school today. The woman nodded, took the remote, and left the room.
So much for that idea.
For what it’s worth, some of the best sandwiches in town. So it wasn’t a total bust.
We’ve seen shops that sell bulk cleaning products, but not an automated one like this. Pretty much everything for your house cleaning needs in as large of quantity as you’d like.
This means that people (especially house cleaners) don’t have to front the cost of several large bottles of cleaning supplies all at once, which can be challenging for a lot of people in Mexico.
In other news, we’ve somehow managed to do it once more! Show up to a town during the largest festival of the year. Looks like this might actually be the FIRST annual Festival Virreinal Mexicano offering a number events throughout the week.
At the same time, it’s also the 11th Annual Festival de Chiles en Nogada, which we’re equally excited about. We’ll see if we can find some reasonably priced chiles en nogada, as they tend to run muy caro.
That’s pretty much how it looks every afternoon around here, and YES, it most certainly means rain (and lots of it). Time to batten down the hatches!
The boys had earned a treat over the week, but there’s not a lot of options in Tepo. After scouring the places that were open today, the boys happened upon these offerings at a booth. Lori didn’t think they were particularly exciting, but the boys thought otherwise—and in this case, that’s what matters.
We initially didn’t know how long we’d be back in Tepo before returning to Mexico City. It’s all been dependent on when Noe’s passport would be ready to pick up.
Our green card expiration date is also fast approaching, so we were hoping Noe’s passport wouldn’t take too long.
In the end, it took all of a week for the passport to be ready for pickup so we needn’t have worried (one more reason why we renew our passports overseas when we can).
Tomorrow, we’ll get the rig ready for storage and head to back to the big city for a second extended stay.
